Last night, I had a class in which I was supposed to do a presentation. The girl I'm dating got an extension on her presentation at the cost of a receiving a full letter grade drop last week. I figured I would be able to get such a thing, too. Unfortunately, that was not the case and upon asking the professor for such an arrangement, he told me that I was "gaming the system", he had heard about me from another professor, and that I ought to leave the program. My first experience ever with this professor included attempting to talk theory with him and watching him literally take a 180 degree turn to ignore me. I never liked him very much after that, and from what I've read regarding his research, he's a has been.
My history with this Master's program is not exactly perfect. Early in the semester, a professor that is contracted by my company became extremely offended upon hearing that I asked an innocent question about a behavior plan she wrote for one of my clients (she had sitting as a reinforcer [reward] activity for this kid that could clearly do something more interactive). She had a meeting with me and managed to create a list of grievances from one of my work clients. On this list, there were things my supervisor had never even told me about. She more or less made it seem as if my company wanted to fire me, which is not the case (I'm still there and they seem to like me, lol). Additionally, during this meeting, I informed her that I was going to drop her class because I had no idea how to balance it with 30 hrs of work and taking two other classes. Furthermore, the fact that she dug up all of that information my supervisor didn't even know about disturbed me; it's not like she is even an official employee at my company. I feel like 90% of the reason we even had that meeting was because I unintentionally revealed to a school administrator that she was using sitting as almost the sole reinforcer and the administrator must have talked to her about this. Anyways, this woman clearly hates me.
Honestly, I would like to leave the program. I realized the field (Applied Behavior Analysis) actively selects against individuals with scientific backgrounds probably within the first couple classes I took. I feel like I'm at high school at this satellite campus university. I didn't want my leaving to be so explosive, though; I'd at least planned on finishing the semester and perhaps switching degree programs. There's still a possibility I could switch degree programs, but this campus is so small/insular that I don't even want to bother.
So, now I am nearly $15k in debt and my only degree is a useless bachelor's. Last but certainly not least, I am going to break this girl's heart when I tell her (or she finds out) that I was asked to leave. Great.
15 Nov 2011, 9:03 am
